Transcript
PROFESSOR:
How much energy do humans use? How much fossil fuel do we burn every year in the world? Which countries are most responsible for climate change? When comparing international emissions of carbon dioxide – not the only, but the most important greenhouse gas – it’s important to make the distinction between emissions per country and emissions per person, in other words, the total amount from a country and the average emissions per person in that country.
Both of these indicators are useful, but it’s very important not to confuse them when discussing climate change and who is responsible. This is a very helpful graph that shows the relationship between income and carbon dioxide emissions, both by country and per person. The data displayed in the graph are from the latest year they were available for all countries, which is 2018. More recent data for selected countries are shown later in this animation.
The horizontal x-axis shows income as GDP per capita per year in US dollars, from $0 to $128,000, and the vertical y-axis shows carbon dioxide emissions per country from almost 0 to over 20 tonnes. Each of these axes has a logarithmic scale, which is a nonlinear scale used when there is a large range of quantities. Each bubble represents a country, and all the major countries of the world have a bubble on this graph.
The colour of the bubble shows which world region a country is in. Red is Asia and Australasia. Green is the Americas. Blue is Africa and yellow is Europe. The size of the bubble – that is, the total area of the bubble – represents the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted from that country.
The graph shows that in general, as income per person in a country increases, carbon dioxide emissions per person also increase. In other words, people in rich countries, those towards the top right-hand side of the graph, generally emit more carbon dioxide per person than people in poorer countries, those towards the bottom left-hand side.
This graph also shows that emissions per person ranged from a fraction of a tonne per year in the poorest countries – these are mainly in Africa – to nearly 10 tonnes per year in the middle-income countries like China, and almost 20 tonnes per person in the richest countries, such as the USA.
This graph shows the most up-to-date data from 2022. The general trends and positions of the bubbles have not changed significantly between 2018 and 2022, but some of the more noticeable changes include some countries, like the UK, Sweden and Israel, having slightly higher income per capita and lower carbon dioxide emissions per person. The income per person in countries like Brazil, Romania and Ireland has risen, but the carbon dioxide emissions per capita have remained similar.
In 2022, China had slightly higher carbon dioxide emissions and income per capita. The bubble for China has the biggest area. China produces the highest total emissions of carbon dioxide per country, at roughly 11 gigatonnes, 11 billion tonnes per year. The USA produces the second highest emissions per country in the world, at roughly 5 gigatonnes per year. And India has the third highest, with just under 3 gigatonnes per year.
However, most importantly, these countries have very different emissions per person. So although India emits a large amount of carbon dioxide in total because it has a very large population, it has relatively low carbon dioxide emissions per person, at around 2 tonnes per year.
The USA has very high carbon dioxide emissions per person per year at around 15 tonnes, which is one of the highest in the world, only exceeded by some oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia.
China is in the middle with emissions per person at around 8 tonnes. This means that on average, individuals in China emit just over half that of individuals in the USA. So although China has the biggest bubble because of its very large population, its emissions per person are relatively moderate.
What countries with high overall emissions do to reduce them is obviously important, but the discussion around carbon dioxide emissions and climate can get confusing when it focuses only on total country emissions without considering emissions per person. By focusing on the total emissions reduction from a country, the disparity between countries’ per capita emissions, and therefore the inequalities within and between countries, can be overlooked.
It is important that when governments take action to reduce their country’s carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, they not only concentrate on the total emissions, but also consider the emissions per person.
This graph is also interesting when it comes to income, and shows that as countries get richer, they tend to have higher carbon dioxide emissions. Consider how the graph has changed over time from the 1800s to 2018. The bubbles are moving toward the top right-hand side of the graph, which shows that as income increases, the carbon dioxide emissions per person also increase.
However, being a high-income country doesn’t mean you have to have very high emissions per person. For example, the UK, France and Sweden all have relatively high incomes, but their carbon dioxide emissions per person are around a third or less than that of the USA. It will be interesting to follow these data over the years to follow the changes over time. Will countries keep moving to the top right-hand side of the graph or will they follow countries that have found ways to live well at lower emission levels?
Historically, greenhouse gas emissions have increased with higher incomes, so the richer countries became, the more they emitted. However, this relationship is no longer the case for some higher-income countries. Some countries, like the UK, France, Germany and Sweden, have managed to find ways to achieve economic growth and higher income while also reducing emissions per person.
This is crucial if the effects of the climate emergency we are already experiencing are to have any chance of being avoided in the future. You can go and find this graph yourself to find out where your country is, how it compares to other countries, and explore the data.